doubt, that it might be so, ordered silence, and then saying that it was useless to chase the small boat in the dark, and that the prisoner must be taken ashore, and given up to the alcaide, bade his men stretch to their oars, which they did; and, presently, passing close by the galleon, my old friend Davosa called out to know what was the matter. The officer who steered answered, that they had come upon an English boat lurking in the harbour, and had captured one of her crew, and that he suspected there were more of the rogues not far off. Then presently, coming to a quay or jetty, they forced me up the slippery steps, and being guarded by two soldiers, each with a drawn sword they marched me away. CHAPTER XX. I AM TRIED AND TORTURED BY THE SPANIARDS. My heart was sad enough and heavy enough, I warrant the reader, as I turned my back upon the sea, and toiled through the dry hot sand of the beach, followed by a group of the boat’s crew. There was no one stirring in the town, only we heard the echo of songs, and the jingle of glasses, from taverns or posadas, where drunken sailors were carousing. Presently we passed through several very narrow streets, not savoury by any means; for rotting garbage lay thick and foul around, and overhead the far-projecting eaves, almost meeting each other, seemed to have been built so as to keep the stenches the better in. Once I heard the twangle of a guitar, or some such instrument. This was as we passed a house, nearly hidden in orange and other trees, and situated in a retired corner of an open space amid gardens; and, looking for the musician, I saw beneath a balcony the slender form of a young man, of just such a size and shape as my gay cavalier Don José—that is to say, so well as I could judge in the light of the newly-risen moon. But I had other fish to fry than to attend to his love-making; for, to tell the truth, I felt by no means certain that I would not be hanged for a spy. All the stories of Spanish cruelty I had ever heard—and they were not a few—came up into my head; and I think, when I called to mind the tortures they ofttimes put their prisoners to, in order to make them reveal what they knew of their comrades’ designs, I felt a greater sinking of heart than even the idea of the halter gave me. But, notwithstanding, my good Scots blood was but for a minute chilled; and then it rushed with fiery force through all my veins, and involuntarily I raised my voice, and made oath by all I worshipped, and all I loved, that they might wrench my limbs out of me ere they got a word to their purpose.